From Michael Greger, MD

After reviewing 5000 chicken samples, researchers from the
National Institutes of Health and the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service
recently calculated alarmingly high levels of arsenic contamination in the flesh
of broiler chickens[1] These government researchers found that the amount of
arsenic in chicken greatly exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency's new
upper safety limit of arsenic allowed in drinking water. In fact, the amount of
arsenic found in chicken was 6 to 9 times that allowed by the EPA. A "bucket" of
Kentucky Fried Chicken would be expected to have up to almost fifty times the
amount of arsenic allowed in a glass of water.[2]

How did the arsenic get into the chickens? The poultry
industry fed it to them. Most broiler chickens (which constitute 99% of the
chicken meat that people eat) are fed arsenic in the United States[3,4] Although
fish and shellfish also present significant dietary sources of arsenic,[6]
according to the Food and Drug Administration arsenic compounds are extensively
added to the feed of animals--particularly chickens and pigs--to make them grow
faster.[5] The animals Americans eat are so heavily infested with internal
parasites that adding arsenic to the feed can result in a "stunning" increase in
growth rates.[7]

Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, a researcher from the Johns Hopkins
School of Public Health, said the poultry industry's practice of using arsenic
compounds in its feed is something that has not been studied. "It's an issue
everybody is trying to pretend doesn't exist," she said.[8] "Arsenic acted as a
growth stimulant in chickens -- develops the meat faster -- and since then, the
poultry industry has gone wild using this ingredient," says Donald Herman, a
Mississippi agricultural consultant and former Environmental Protection Agency
researcher who has studied this use of arsenic for a decade. "And they've tried
everything to refrain it from becoming public knowledge,".[9]

The poultry industry argues that the organic form of arsenic
given to chickens isn't toxic.[10] "This study appears to be much ado about
nothing," says Richard Lobb, the public relations Director of the National
Chicken Council. He says the less toxic form of arsenic is "used responsibly and
safely by poultry producers."[11] The researchers, however, found not only
elevated levels of organic arsenic in chicken meat, they found elevated levels
of the highly toxic inorganic form typically used only in insecticides and weed
killers.[12] And cooking the muscles of these animals may create additional
toxic arsenic by-products.[13]

Inorganic arsenic is considered one of the prominent
environmental causes of cancer mortality in the world.[14] Arsenic is a human
carcinogen linked to liver, lung, skin, kidney, bladder and prostate cancers. It
can also cause neurological, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and immune system
abnormalities. Diabetes has also been linked to arsenic exposure.[15]

The feeding of arsenic to chickens in the U.S. releases
hundreds of tons of arsenic into the environment every year in the form of
poultry manure which is spread on fields as fertilizer.[16] In fact there's
currently a coalition of families suffering serious health conditions suing
chicken producers like Tyson after research showed cancer rates as much as 50
times above the national average in communities neighboring factory farmed
poultry operations.

The February 2004 Medical Letter on the CDC & FDA concludes
"Chicken consumption may contribute significant amounts of arsenic to total
arsenic exposure of the U.S. population..." Levels of arsenic in chicken are so
high that other sources may have to be monitored carefully to prevent undue
toxic exposure among the population.[17]

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